The Eighth Spell
by StoppingTheMotorOfTheWorld
Summary: And so it came to be that two adventurers and a suitcase fell off the face of the earth. In an alternate dimension reality reshaped itself to accomodate them. In this one, it forgot to. Welcome to the Eighth Spell.
1. Prologue

Legal mumbo-jumbo: Terry Pratchett owns Discworld. Blizzard owns Diablo. There, I said it, happy?

Word count: 381

Author: (Insert penname)

Date Finished: 13th December 2006

Type: Fanfiction (Discworld/Diablo)

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The Eighth Spell: Prologue

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Sanctuary- or so the world was called by its inhabitants- was round. This, in of itself, was not particularly unusual. What was unusual was the fact that that it was round _and_ quite magical You see, magic- a most interesting word by the way- does not like round things. In fact, it abhors them. Round things are architecturally strong, structurally sound and worse of all…

They're damnably hard to draw.

And as any good theologician knows, it's the lazy god that lets Magic do the explaining. Like why the sky is blue, the stars pictograms or the horizon a shade hazier than they should be... And besides, as everyone else knows making their world round is an attribute of the obsessed and the neurotic and the not-so-magically inclined. Not that that's ever been confirmed. Diviners who were paid substantial sums of gold to question a particular deity as to why such and such a world was shaped in such and such a way usually got blasted into smithereens for their efforts.

Not that any of that would interest any of the several million humans on the planet at the moment. In fact, due to a recent invasion of demonic forces (they were called the Sin forces by the more remote observers who had the temerity to term themselves the Virtuous Ones), even the most learned of wizards was more interested in the things that went 'boom!' rather than the things that went… well, round.

But it wouldn't explain the giant metal fish, nor its occupants whose current career seemed to be centered on falling towards the small blue planet. Nor would it explain its current the tourist by the name of Twoflower and a wizzard by the name of Rincewind. Nor would it explain the complete collapse and destruction of their home world- the Discworld- by some unfortunate string of coincidences that had to do with the gods, a lawnmower, a missing spell and a very irate turtle who was termed the great A'Tuin by his (or her) inhabitants.

What would explain all these string of odd and disconcerting facts would be nothing less than the fact that the Discworld that these frumps hailed from was as flat as a pancake.

And they had fallen right off the edge.

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Author's notes:

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_Y'know, sometime ago I swore to put Diablo to rest forever. No matter how I looked at it, I'd just spawn a new hack-and-slash type fanfiction with the entire tired cast of heroes. I had thought up a few clever variations- y'know, an anti-hero mercenary/torturer/thug/prostitute type turned hero (obviously not all three at once), Vash the Stampede popping into existence in Sanctuary… but it wasn't meaningful. It wasn't funny. It wasn't anything I wanted it to be (Course' me muse is saying au contraire about the Vash one)._

_And then I met Rincewind. And then it all made sense._


	2. Chapter 1: Something Odd

Legal Mumbo-Jumbo: Terry Pratchett owns stuff. Blizzard owns stuff.

Word count: 1088

Author: StoppingTheMotorOfTheWorld (wow, that's freakin' long)

Date start: December 14th, 2006

Date end: December 20th, 2006

Type: Fanfiction (Discworld/Diablo)

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The Eighth Spell

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Grimoire 'Munchkin' Gretel, as of the moment traveling under the token pseudonym, 'Red Jade,' was not at all a happy camper. In fact, if anything, she was more than slightly peeved. She was a sister of the Sightless Eye and as such, fully aware of what lay in store for her in the afterlife. That is to say, she would be either reincarnated or turned into a mindless, damned zombie that was to be killed by the first passing hero and sent to Hell for all eternity. While interesting, she was quite a bit more interested in keeping herself- and all her random appendages, intact until the former could assuredly trump the latter.

"_Running away little Rogue?_" Andariel's voice cackled. "_But what about your poor, helpless Sisters? Don't you want to save them? Don't you want to _help_ them?_"

The more doors she slammed the less she had to listen to the overgrown succubus the priestess decided and continued running. She didn't know why the previous demonic residents of the Monastery had chosen discretion as the better part of valour but she wasn't about to ask. It probably had something to do with the fact that she and Dumptruck, her former barbarian mentor/employer had been instrumental in decorating the monastery walls with their guts, blood and hide.

They were fools to believe they could do the same to a Major Demon.

Her vision wavered. From blood loss or from the exertion she wasn't sure. She was almost at the main entrance… from there the Waypoint would only be a few….

Andariel's voice laughed. Mockingly. Demonically. The main doors slammed shut, so slowly that she could almost see herself rushing through them at the last second. She didn't, and slammed right into half a foot of steel reinforced oak.

"_Don't you want to save your barbarian friend?"_

Something crashed into her side, winding her and sending her right back into the door. When she opened her eyes, the torchlight that she had relied on so heavily had decided to leave. She looked down and stifled a scream.

That was a _head._ _His_ head.

The Rogue screamed. The Demon smiled a toothy smile.

And then something very, very odd happened.

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The Eighth Spell- Chapter 1: Something Odd

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First there came the flying star. It bounced right through the roof, through a few priceless artefacts that hadn't been quite ransacked due to their storage in the monastery's cozy attic, through a demon that had been stationed exactly two feet below the last of the said artefacts and then through a stone wall right onto the monastary's spineless lawn ornaments. While odd, it wasn't completely irrational. Stars fell down all the time. It might have been pulling at the heartstrings of fate and coincidence but still, it could have happened.

What made it utterly and sincerely impossible was the fact that after all that bouncing it still had the kinetic energy to politely knock on the door. Or barge at it like a Fallen that had drank far too much demon beer for its own good but no one pays attention to details like that these days. Grimoire felt the bump and logically (if only somewhat correctly) believed it to be the demons that she hadn't seen throughout her desperate foray out of this place.

The Rogue said a bad word believing that she was about to die rather messily. Andariel caught herself before she almost said, "Pardon me?" in a most un-demonic and civilized manner. It was Hell's best kept secret that one of the major demons could not abide foul language.

What happened second was utterly beyond anyone's control and vaguely reminiscent of a particularly bad plotline that everyone from Bollywood to Holy Wood had corrupted severely, if not permanently.

Andariel had only about a split second to ponder the nature of the knocking (that she certainly did not order) when the second oddity occurred and the monastery collapsed. It had absolutely nothing to do with magic and a lot to do with a very interesting force that seems extant in most shades of reality. Some weirdo in the damned universe where the Others had taken over called it gravity.

Still, as other words don't slide off the tongue quite as easily we'll use that one. As a small token of appreciation we'll even pitch in the obligatory demonstration. Take an apple. Any size. Now let go. Watch as it falls and hit your big toe. Now take a lead ball of roughly the same size. Do the same. Your toe isn't in the way anymore, is it? That's what is gravity: a mysterious force that allows humans to realize things fall. It only took them about half a million years longer than anything else in existence, but that's humans for you.

Unfortunately for one major demoness (who heralded from one of a place where physics are a teensy-weensy bit more mutable) never did get a chance to experiment with the apple and as one of those karmaic things got the three four ton metal fish that did more than squash her big toe.

"Demon guts," Grimoire noted. She had one of those stupid looks that people have after something truly good happens and they're busy trying to enjoy it but simultaneously looking for the warning signs that the Universe is trying to correct this gesture of magnanimity and get them properly depressed or suicidal again. Wizards tend to get it when they're trying to sleep with one eye open.

She was also, as she correctly noted, covered in demon guts.

It was probably, for that reason, that when the two figures stumbled right out of the giant metal fish one of them promptly fainted and the other brandished what appeared to be a hat. A very shabby hat.

Rincewind had awoken in steps and stages. Unlike most of his kind (humans that is) his brain was the first thing functional. The rest of him just took a little while longer to adjust. As his body was busy compensating for the interesting alien worldscape the first thought he had was something along the lines of 'I'm still alive!' And yes dear reader that is bonafide, 100 genuine wonder. His second thought was more Rincewind-like and was composed of fragments of pessimism that had been left out too long. Basically those traveled the well-trodden belief that the world was going to come to his senses and try and kill him again.

He was, like usual, quite right.

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Author's Notes:

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I actually did finish it on December 20th… then the writer's bug hit and I was completely unsatisfied with it. Right now, the feeling has mellowed to a 'who gives a crap?' and thus we have this little monstrosity. Anyone want to beta read my stuff? I can write fast(ish), it's the posting of bad material that gets to me.


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